Sombre thoughts....

Today, I opened my school email account, and saw an email from my lecturer asking us to post our thoughts and comments on the psychological impact of the Nicoll Highway collapse. Below is an extract from the posting that I made:

"...at a community level, I think the Nicoll Highway collapse came as a shock to everyone, and probably jolted many of us out of our comfort zones. I think no one would have thought something like that would happen in Singapore. (In fact, I thought that the taxi driver fetching me to school for the Biopsych paper was joking about the collapse.) Our country is simply too safe to have such things happen, right? Wrong. In times of such traumatic disasters, many people would no doubt stop to think about the brevity and fragility of life, and such sentiments are probably echoed in the newspapers, in the TV news, and even as we interact amongst ourselves within the settings of workplace and home..."

When I heard about the Nicoll Highway collapse, I was suddenly confronted by my own mortality. I pondered about how fragile life is. There's a Chinese saying that goes: "Man will definitely win Heaven (Ren Ding Sheng Tian)," which roughly means that humans have the ability to determine their own destiny or fate. It's essentially a philosophy of the indomitable human spirit. But is that really the case sometimes? Events like the Nicoll Highway collapse really make me wonder. If we're really able to decide our own fate, why do such things happen? One can't help but wonder if some things really aren't up to us, even if this sounds all too fatalistic.

On a more positive note, I remember someone saying that since death is a fact of life, the challenge then is to live life meaningfully. Mr Heng--the heroic foreman who sacrificed his life to save eight other men--had clearly lived life meaningfully. He loved his family very much, often taking his wife and children out on weekends. He had worked hard for a living. In fact, he had been saving up to buy a car so that his family could travel in comfort. He was helpful and kind, often lending a hand to people in need, even as he faced imminent death. So in many ways, Mr Heng had definitely led a fulfilled life; I'm sure he had few regrets. At this point in time, it may be too late to ask, why must this sort of thing happen? Instead, it may be more constructive to ask how can we help the bereaved move on with their lives, come to terms with what had happened and achieve a sense of closure.

All at once, the Nicoll Highway collapse had been a shocking, devastating, and discomforting piece of news. My heart really goes out to the victims' families, especially the family of Mr Heng. I was close to tears watching the bereaved family members on TV. It was heart-wrenching. Mr Heng's heroism made me think about what I had studied in personality psychology: there are some personality traits, like bravery, that will perhaps be hard to measure because the circumstances under which they are exhibited are rare in themselves. Clearly, Mr Heng was a brave man, for he had put his own life on the line so that others may live. But if it required circumstances like that of the Nicoll Highway collapse for bravery to be seen by all, I'd rather bravery be a hidden trait that'll never be seen by others, for I'd rather not have such disasters happen at all. Too many lives will be lost, and in this case, too many lives were lost.

To those who had perished in the Nicoll Highway collapse.